UK General Election 2017

[Montmorency]

It still amounts to a preponderance of Labour voters in the age groups giving way to a preponderance of Conservative voters in the age groups, with the crossover point in the 35-40 group. Every younger group of 5 or so years is more Labour than its older neighbour, every older group or 5 or so years is more Conservative than its younger neighbour.

You're talking about the existing people and relationships. Indeed, those who were born in the 1960s are overall more conservative than those born in the 1990s. This won't tell us much about the beliefs or voting habits in 20 years of those who are millennials now. I.e. the actual people who will become 35-40 in the future are more telling than the fact that they will be 35-40.

As for the UK, the Thatcher Children, those born in the 1960s and 1970s, have tended to be more right-wing than those born in the previous decades, and more likely to vote Conservative. I told you that it isn't a linear progression.

Those in the oldest age group are less likely to agree
with the Thatcherite position on redistribution than the youngest age group, but are more likely
to think poorly of benefit seekers and to want children to be taught to obey authority. The effects
for year of survey show that, with the exception of the inequality item, there are significant
period effects with increasing support for the Thatcherite position in all cases except support for
the death penalty. This suggests that, over a period of twenty or more years, the electorate
indeed became more Thatcherite, particularly with respect to negative attitudes about the
benefits system, the unemployed, benefit recipients and the welfare system more generally.
The coefficients for political generations in the APC models presented in Table 3, in
conjunction with the results from the Wald tests presented in Table 4, show that across eight of
nine indicators, Thatcher’s Children are more right wing and authoritarian than the generation
preceding them (Wilson/Callaghan’s Children). This provides support to Hypothesis 1. Blair’s
Babies are also more right wing and authoritarian than this political generation, confirming that
Thatcherite values were reproduced under New Labour, and become stronger and embedded in
the generation that came of age after Thatcher’s time in office. This is consistent with
Hypothesis 2. Thatcher’s Children and Blair’s Babies are even more right wing economically
than the generation that came of age before the post-war consensus. Blair’s Babies in particular
are almost as negative about benefits and the welfare system as the generation that came of age
before it was created. They are also nearly as authoritarian as the oldest generations, showing
that the trend toward modernization and greater social liberalism was at least slowed down in
Britain under the Thatcher governments.

[Pannonian]

You're talking about the existing people and relationships. Indeed, those who were born in the 1960s are overall more conservative than those born in the 1990s. This won't tell us much about the beliefs or voting habits in 20 years of those who are millennials now. I.e. the actual people who will become 35-40 in the future are more telling than the fact that they will be 35-40.

As for the UK, the Thatcher Children, those born in the 1960s and 1970s, have tended to be more right-wing than those born in the previous decades, and more likely to vote Conservative. I told you that it isn't a linear progression.

That's because it is now 2017. Take another look in 2047. You'll find that the younger age groups tend to vote the Left party, while the older age groups tend to vote Tory, with the crossover in the group who were born in 2007-2012.

[Montmorency]

That's because it is now 2017. Take another look in 2047. You'll find that the younger age groups tend to vote the Left party, while the older age groups tend to vote Tory, with the crossover in the group who were born in 2007-2012.

What's the evidence, as opposed to contemporary youth forming a life-long bent toward Labor and perhaps those being born now forming an early bent toward Conservatives?

[Pannonian]

What's the evidence, as opposed to contemporary youth forming a life-long bent toward Labor and perhaps those being born now forming an early bent toward Conservatives?

Back in the early days of Blair, it was noted that the Conservative Party was extraordinarily elderly, and it was estimated that the Conservative member base would die off within a decade or so. A couple of decades on, the Tories are in government, and the same age group trends noted by Churchill are still there. The trend has been there throughout my lifetime, and goes back before my lifetime. Why should I assume that things are going to be different when the evidence says otherwise?

[Montmorency]

Back in the early days of Blair, it was noted that the Conservative Party was extraordinarily elderly, and it was estimated that the Conservative member base would die off within a decade or so. A couple of decades on, the Tories are in government, and the same age group trends noted by Churchill are still there. The trend has been there throughout my lifetime, and goes back before my lifetime. Why should I assume that things are going to be different when the evidence says otherwise?

The point being that this isn't the correct trend to notice; even its impression extends only to the past several generations and may be better explained as a function than as a pure function of aging.

For instance, in 1979, 1983, and 1987 the Conservative ascendancy saw 18-34 voters favor Tories over Labor in their proportion of the vote This only flipped under Blair, and that's when Labor had a huge lead among youth. This lead then disappeared in 2010. So while Tory biases at various times are larger in older groups, and Labor biases smaller, much of the results we see can be better linked to period-specific political circumstances and generational (as opposed to age) differences.

What you need to do to get a better grip on the relationship of age to politics is to compare generations rather than age brackets at one point in time. How do political beliefs and voting habits of those born in the 1930s and 1940s compare to those born in the 50s, then the 60s and 70s... and how do these change over time within that cohort, all of that. If one cohort is simply more left-oriented than their immediate successors and always have been, as seems to be the case for the oldest voting bloc in the UK, then we should look beyond some kind of 'senescence turning point' on a spectrum. That's not to say that absolute aging can't have an effect on political attitudes, but that this has to be supported and contextualized and not merely assumed as is commonly done.

[Montmorency]

Greyblades, what both majority and minority parties do beyond passing legislation is develop policies with their interest groups and target demographics, bargain individually and corporately with their opponents, and work locally or behind the scenes to prime the electorate for the next contest. Parties are actively engaged in governing even if they don't on paper have the front seat (unless they are just very small). Democracies are set up exactly to prevent minority groups (parties here) from being powerless, although different setups can grant more or less power.

Single-party rule in a democracy in itself weakens other parties because they do not have the chance to develop national infrastructure to a meaningful extent, and because there is less leverage with which to modify the ruling party's agenda. Look at the slippery-banana-peel performance of Japan's DPJ 2008-2012, to the point that the whole party in recent years had to be dissolved/merged (yet again) with others to maintain an opposition to the classic LDP hegemony over postwar Japan. A similar effect exists with very small or niche parties, in connection with the first paragraph. As an aside, parties like DUP are a weird kind of exception because they have otherwise been empowered, status quo parties in their own right.

I'm only saying here that it is incorrect to characterize a non-majority result as an unqualifiable failure for a party. Parties play for keeps, or they disappear.

[Fragony]

Just don't be afraid of total chaos and yo will be fine

[Pannonian]

Just don't be afraid of total chaos

Did you vote UKIP in the last general election? Did your UKIP candidate lose his deposit?

[Fragony]

Did you vote UKIP in the last general election? Did your UKIP candidate lose his deposit?

I can't but would. The EU needs nothing other than being burned

It could work but everybody there must leave

[LittleGrizzly]

Ahh so leaving was a good idea we should have just made sure everyone else in Europe was ready to jump ship at the same time?

Alternatively we'll continue to make a hash of it and force the rest of you even closer together....